1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to snowshoes with crampons that are attached to footwear such as shoes and used when walking on snowy ground such as in deep snow areas in winter mountains.
2. Description of Related Art
Tools called “kanjiki (‘snowshoes’ in Japanese)” have been conventionally used by a wearer to walk and move on snowy ground, for example, in deep snow areas in winter mountains. These kanjiki are a walking tool for making it easier for a wearer to walk on the snowy ground by distributing the weight of the wearer over the deep snowy ground and obtaining buoyancy over the snow, thereby reducing sinking into the snow. However, in actual snow mountains, there is not only the deep snowy ground, but also frozen slopes. In order to walk on such frozen surfaces, it is necessary to change the kanjiki to climbing irons. Consequently, it is in fact necessary to carry around both the kanjiki and the climbing irons, which is an annoying increased burden to carry.
Therefore, in recent years, tools called “snowshoes” (western kanjiki) are being used to make it easier for a wearer to walk on the snowy surface than it is with the kanjiki. In some cases, the snowshoe has non-slip claws (crampons) on its surface facing the snowy surface when a wearer wears it (hereinafter referred to as the “underside”). When the wearer passes a partly frozen place, he does not have to change his snowshoes to, for example, climbing irons and can continue walking with the snowshoes attached to his shoes.
As an example of such a tool (snowshoe), there is a snowshoe including: a body to be attached to a shoe when a wearer walks on a snowy surface; a first crampon protruding from the snow-surface side of the body and placed at a position corresponding to a toe portion of the shoe; a second crampon protruding from the snow-surface side of the body and placed at a position corresponding to a heel portion of the shoe; and a plurality of third crampons respectively protruding from the snow-surface side of both side edges of the body and having larger claws than those of the first and second crampons. (See, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (Kokai) Publication No. 2002-125712).
There is another type of tool (snowshoe) that has a larger area than that of the bottom of a shoe, and includes: a frame made of a single metal plate; a fastening means for fastening the shoe to the upper side of the frame; and non-slip claws protruding downwards from the underside of the frame. (See, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (Kokai) Publication No. 2003-125808).
However, conventional snowshoes with crampons are structured to be bulky as a whole because the crampons are fixed to the underside of the snowshoe, and straps and the like for fastening a shoe to the snowshoe with crampons are placed on one surface of the snowshoe opposite the underside (hereinafter referred to as the “upper side”). As a result, they are inconvenient to carry around and it is also difficult to carry or store the pair of snowshoes with crampons by putting either one of the left-foot snowshoe and the right-foot snowshoe on top of the other to make them in compact size.
Under circumstances where steep slopes or similar are frozen, the body (or deck) of a conventional snowshoe with crampons becomes a factor with regard to slippage. Therefore, it is common to walk with only the climbing irons (or crampons), without putting the snowshoes on. However, with conventional snowshoe with crampons, the crampons are fixed to the underside of the snowshoe and thereby cannot be separated from the body (or deck). As a result, it is necessary to separately carry the climbing irons in addition to the snowshoe with crampons, which is cumbersome.